George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[80] talk with him that was curious, considering that he is one of the Pope's ministers. It was about the Abbe de Lamennais' last book, ‘Les Affaires de Rome,’ which has made so much noise lately, and the brief for forbidding which is now on the pillars of St. Peter's. I told him I had just read it, and he entered into a full discussion of the views of the Court of Rome touching Lamennais himself, whom he treated throughout as a turbulent democrat seeking power. He said, when the Abbe was here in the time of Leo XII., he produced a great sensation, and was greatly admired; and that the Pope himself had even the project of making him a Cardinal, from which he was dissuaded. The present Pope, he said, had always understood him, and that the other day the Pope showed him a copy of the ‘Affaires de Rome,’ in which he had marked the inconsistencies and contradictions it contained, which are likely to have been considerable in amount and number, if not in weight and importance. No doubt if the Court of Rome were true to its principles and ancient usages, the Abbe de Lamennais would now be excommunicated; no doubt, too, they would be glad to do it, but the state of the world does not permit them. John Bunyan's Allegory is come literally true.

In the afternoon we went to St. Peter's, always a great pleasure, and heard some good music; and the evening was divided between a sensible, intellectual visit to the Sismondis, and a fashionable one at the Princess Borghese's.

March 13.—. . . . In the evening I dined with the Countess of Westmoreland, who lives here in much elegant luxury at the Villa Negroni. The party was large, and among the persons present were Colonel Mure, Lord Maidstone, Count Ludolf, Sismondi, Madame d'orloff,—the wife of the reigning favorite of the Emperor Nicholas,—the Abbe Stuart, Monsignor Wiseman, and Mr. Hare. The hostess is an intellectual person, something strange and original in her character, but very pleasant; and as nearly every one of her guests was more or less accomplished and scholar-like, we had a very agreeable time and stayed late.

March 15.—We passed a most agreeable morning in the Loggie and Stanze of Raffaelle, in the magnificent halls where are his tapestries, . . . . and in the picture-gallery, with the Transfiguration, the Madonna di Foligno, and all the other wonderful works collected in these three rooms, the like of which there is not in the world. I am sorry to think, however, that they are ill placed here for their preservation. I have constantly noticed that the Madonna di Foligno seems to have suffered since I saw it twenty years ago; and Temmel,